“Oh, how perfect. It’s even better than I thought. I can’t thank you enough!”
“He probably will want to take a look at it before he makes any decisions. And we need to talk about rent.”
She told her what the Smiths had been paying per month and Carrie’s eyes widened.
“Are you kidding? That’s totally a bargain around here, especially in the summer. I know the insurance company was going to pay much more than that. I’m sure it will be fantastic. You are the best.”
Carrie and Bella left the store a few moments later, with Bella promising to come back so she could pay for the earrings.
As soon as the door closed behind them, Rosa slumped against the jewelry counter. What had she done?
She did not want Wyatt Townsend living anywhere close to her. The man looked too deeply, saw too much.
Ah, well. She would simply work a little harder to hide her secrets. She had plenty of practice.
* * *
“Sorry. Run that by me again. You did what?”
Wyatt gazed at his sister in shock. She lifted her chin, somehow managing to look embarrassed and defiant at the same time. “You heard me. I talked to Rosa Galvez about you moving into her empty apartment at Brambleberry House.”
He adored his older sister and owed her more than he could ever repay for the help she had given him the last three years, since Tori had died. But she had a bad habit of trying to run his life for him.
It was his own fault. He knew what Carrie was like, how she jumped on a single comment and ran with it. He should never have mentioned to her that he was thinking about renting an apartment until the fire renovations were done. He should have simply found one and told her about it later.
“When I mentioned I was thinking about moving out, I didn’t mean for you to go apartment hunting right away for me.”
“I know. When you said that, I remembered Rosa had an empty apartment. As far as I’m concerned, you can stay on my family-room couch forever, but I thought a two-bedroom apartment would be better than a little camp trailer for a grown man and an active seven-year-old.”
Wyatt could not disagree. In truth, he had made a few inquiries himself that day, and had discovered most of the available rental homes were unavailable all summer and those that were left were out of his price range.
What else did he expect? Cannon Beach was a popular tourist destination. Some of the short-term rentals had been booked out years in advance.
He did not mind living with his sister, brother-in-law and niece. He loved Carrie’s family and Logan did, as well. But as the battle with his insurance company dragged on about doing repairs to his bungalow, he had been feeling increasingly intrusive in their lives.
Carrie was already helping him with his son. She didn’t need to have them taking up every available inch of her living space with their stuff.
“The apartment at Brambleberry House is perfect! You can move in right now, it’s fully furnished and available all summer.”
“Why? I would have thought Rosa would want to rent it out on a longer lease.”
“The couple who have been living there are supposed to be coming back in a few months. I don’t think Rosa is very thrilled about having vacation renters in and out all summer.”
“What makes you think having Logan and me downstairs would be better for her?”
“She knows you two. You’re friends.”
He was not sure he would go that far. Rosa hardly talked to him whenever they were at any kind of social event around town. He almost thought she went out of her way to avoid him, though he was not sure what he might have done to offend her.
“She said it was fine and that you can move in anytime. Today, if you want to. Isn’t that wonderful?”
Again, Wyatt wasn’t sure wonderful was the word he would use. This would only be a temporary resting place until the repairs were completed on their house.
On the other hand, it would be better for Logan than Wyatt’s crazy camp-trailer idea. He couldn’t deny that.
Poor kid. His world had been nothing but upheaval the past three years, though Wyatt had tried to do his best to give him a stable home life after Tori died.
Wyatt had been working as a police officer in Seattle when his wife went into cardiac arrest from a congenital heart condition none of them had known about. Logan had been four.
Numb with shock at losing his thirty-year-old, athletic, otherwise healthy wife, he had come home to Cannon Beach, where his sister lived, and taken a job with the local police department.
He hadn’t known what else to do. His parents had wanted to help but both were busy professionals with demanding careers and little free time to devote to a grieving boy. Carrie had love and time in abundance, and she had urged him to move here, with a slower pace and fewer major crimes than the big city.
The move had been good for both of them. Wyatt liked his job as a detective on the Cannon Beach police force. He was busy enough that he was never bored but he was also not totally overwhelmed.
He worked on a couple of drug task forces and the SWAT team, which had only been called out a handful of times during his tenure here, all for domestic situations.
The move had been even better for Logan. He loved spending time with his aunt, uncle and older cousin, Bella. He had a wide circle of friends and a budding interest in marine biology.
Wyatt loved seeing his son thrive and knew Carrie and her family were a huge part of that. Logan spent as much time at her house as he did their own.
During the past month, both of them had spent more than enough time with Carrie and her family, since they were living there.
Another month and they could move back to his house, he hoped.
Wyatt counted his blessings that his bungalow hadn’t been a complete loss. Fire crews had responded quickly and had been able to save most of the house except the kitchen, where the fire had started, probably from old, faulty wiring. The main living area had also been burned. Even so, all the rooms had suffered water and smoke damage.
Dealing with the renovations was a tedious job, filled with paperwork, phone calls and aggravation, but Wyatt could definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel.
“What do you think?” Carrie looked apprehensive but excited. “Don’t you think it’s a fabulous idea? Brambleberry House is so close, you can easily drop off Logan when you need me to watch him.”
Location definitely was a plus. Carrie’s house and Rosa’s were only a few blocks apart. Brambleberry House was also positioned about halfway between his house and his sister’s, which would be convenient when he was overseeing the repairs.
Wyatt knew there were many advantages to moving into an apartment at Brambleberry House. Wouldn’t it be good to have their own space again? Somewhere he could walk around in his underwear once in a while if he needed to grab a pair of jeans out of the dryer, without having to worry about his sister or his niece walking in on him?
“It could work,” he said, not quite willing to jump a hundred percent behind the idea. “Are you sure Rosa is okay with it?”
“Totally great.” Carrie gave a bright smile that somehow had a tinge of falseness to it. What wasn’t she telling him? Did Rosa Galvez really want to rent the apartment or had Carrie somehow manipulated her into doing it?
He wouldn’t put it past his sister. She had a way of persuading people to her way of thinking.
Wyatt’s cop instincts told him there was more to Rosa Galvez than one could see on the surface. She had secrets, but then most people did.
The bottom line was, he was not interested in digging into her secrets. She could keep them.
As long as she obeyed the law, he was not going to pry into her business. Rosa could have all the secrets she wanted. It was nothing to him.
So why, then, was he so apprehensive about moving into Bram
bleberry House?
He did not have a rational reason to say no. It really did make sense to have their own place. It would be better for Logan, which was the only thing that mattered, really.
It was only a month, maybe two at the most. Wyatt would survive his unease around her.
“Are you sure the apartment is affordable?”
“Absolutely. She told me how much she’s charging and you won’t find anything else nearly as nice in that price range. It’s well within your budget. And I forgot to mention, the apartment already has a dog door for Hank and a fenced area in the yard.”
That would be another plus. Logan’s beagle mix was gregarious, energetic and usually adorable, but Carrie’s two ragdoll cats were not fans of the dog. They would be more than glad to have Hank out of their territory.
“It sounds ideal,” he said, finally surrendering to the inevitable. “Thanks for looking in to it for us.”
“As I said, the apartment is ready immediately. You can stay there tonight, if you want.”
He blinked. How had things progressed so quickly from him merely mentioning the night before that he was thinking about moving out to his sister handling all the details and basically shoving him out the door today?
He could think of no good reason to wait and forced a smile. “Great. I’ll start packing everything up and we can head over as soon as Logan gets home from day camp.”
Carrie’s face lit up. “You can at least wait for dinner. I imagine Rosa is probably working until six or seven, anyway.”
“Right.”
“I think you’re going to love it. Rosa is so nice and she has a new tenant, Jen Ryan, who has a little girl who is a bit younger than Logan. Rosa has a wonderful dog, Fiona, who is more human than dog, if you ask me. I’m sure Hank will love her.”
At the sound of his name, Wyatt’s beagle mix jumped up from the floor, grabbed a ball and plopped it at Wyatt’s feet. He picked it up and tossed it down the hall. Hank scrambled after it, much to the disdain of one of the ragdolls, who was sprawled out in a patch of sunlight.
He had seen Rosa on the beach, walking a gorgeous Irish setter. They were hard to miss, the lovely woman and her elegant dog.
Rosa was hard to miss anywhere. She was the sort of woman who drew attention, only in part because of her beautiful features and warm dark eyes.
She exuded warmth and friendliness, at least with everyone else in town. With Wyatt, she seemed watchful and reserved.
That didn’t matter, he supposed. She was kind enough to let him live in her apartment for the next month. He didn’t need her to be his best friend.
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Available July 2021
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ISBN-13: 9780369704993
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A Place to Belong Page 37
